The Most Beautiful Place in the World with Rob Newall

I met Rob on a wild day in late March; as broken sunshine and icy showers battled it out for the remains of the day. With a clunk, then a creak, the front door opens and Rob beckons me in. The great oak door is hundreds of years old, its leaky and draughty to both light and air. Yet it has facilitated, and witnessed, the passage of many inhabitants – including, over the last four decades, the comings and goings of Rob Newall and his family. The house, and Rob himself, are full of memories and stories…

The house is old and weather-beaten, shaped by people and the elements,

it’s well lived-in, and we’ve lived well here. Nearly forty years in one place,

through hard, cold times (and a few periods of plenty, too).

The back half of the house was washed away once in great floods that came down the valley, 

that’s where those tall trees are growing now, so you couldn’t tell.

Look at this photo: it’s a family who used to stay on the farm to work, before my time,

then one day they showed up at my door to visit, and revisit old memories.

These days there’s not enough from farming for two families; not enough for one, really.

Back in 1991, we sold some fields, to make ends meet, but later we bought the two cottages, 

so that has helped us financially, along with the beef cattle on the permanent pasture. 

We’re trying out multi-species restoration scheme, but I don’t want something for nothing.

It’s the most beautiful place in the world. And I want to stay here. 

At the top of the hill – called the Point – we can see the whole farm in one sweep,

from steeply sloping pastures to the little wooded valley bottom: my Dad called it the ‘goyle’.

One year, we pulled down a dead tree and dragged it up this hill. 

It’s a dragon now, that’s plain to see!

The cows like to scratch their backs on those old, dead trees, fleas I suppose,

and the hair from their hides falls out, and blows away on the breeze, 

but it grows back again: their thick skins don’t mind the cold winds. 

In summer, when the campers come, we let them have free rein to roam, 

to come and go across these fields and hills. If they want to, they can cook

or even shower outdoors, under the sky, under the stars.

It’s the most beautiful place in the world. 

We peer at the pasture, looking at early yellow flowers amongst the green growth, 

when a buzzard’s evocative cry pulls our heads and calls our attention 

upwards to the cloud-scudding sky, as we admire its fine feathered form.

We get lots of buzzards here. Sometimes, in summer I sit on a bench over there,

And watch two, or three, kestrels, hovering; holding their own against the wind.

And sparrowhawks. Last year we even had a pair of red kites on the farm.

Then there’s a passing peregrine, maybe from Beaminster church.

I love the birds of prey; different birds seem to use different heights.

I want this farm to be a conduit for all wildlife.

It’s the most beautiful place in the world.

On one edge of the farm is Dead Man’s Lane, and well-named: it’s a corpse track –

a funeral path to the next village. The ground around Mapperton church is too stony to dig,

so they used to carry the bodies down the lane, and over the hill, 

and bury them in the graveyard of St Mary’s church in Netherbury, by mutual agreement.

There’s always been an old sycamore tree right here at the top of Dead Man’s Lane, 

marking the boundary between the two parishes. It was called the Posy Tree, 

because they used to carry posies of flowers and fragrant herbs, to mask the smell, I suppose.

The tree was old when we arrived, and became more and more decrepit and diseased with time,

but somebody used to visit, once every year, to leave their own posy of flowers by its roots.

In the end we had to pull the old tree down, for safety reasons. And it took a few years

before we replanted another: this sycamore sapling, that’s now growing in the same spot,

is another Posy Tree. But no-one leaves any flowers anymore; perhaps they’re gone.

And I didn’t notice what time of year it was when they came, so now I’ll never know

the date of remembrance, but I’ll never forget their intention.

It’s the most beautiful place in the world, though. And I want to stay here. 

Footnote regarding the Posy Tree

When the bubonic plague came to Mapperton, either in the first wave after arrival or the second in the 1360s, the people of Netherbury were understandably set against others bringing diseased bodies into their village. So, they met the Mapperton corpse-carriers at the Posy Tree with make-shift weapons, ready to stand their ground. Eventually a compromise was reached where they buried the bodies at the summit of South Warren Hill. 

Intriguingly, the name Mapperton comes from the Anglo-Saxon Mapledertun, which means Maple-tree farm. Sycamore, although not strictly a native, is a species of Maple.